EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALMarch 30, 1999
Calle Conde de Barajas, Seville
Las Hermandades: Holy Tuesday
In Seville, Las Hermandades are the directors of the production
that is Holy Week. These brotherhoods assemble the piety of the people, attune and direct
devotion, ensure historical continuity and organize the procession and stations of
penitence upon which the whole year is concentrated. The finished product, the paso,
is the result of a long-standing power to bring the Sevillano people together to celebrate
their united identity.
To a North American, the anonymous, hooded figures conjure an ugly
association with the United State’s southern racists. In reality, it was these
Americans who appropriated the medieval costume. Though distantly related to the old
medieval brotherhoods, the centuries-old Sevillano hermandades are mostly a result
of the Counter-Reformation and an answer to the Lutherans’ attack on images. The
deliberately theatrical pasos were developed to bring the Catholic interpretation
of the Passion and Death of Christ, in all of its bleeding, Baroque pageantry, out into
the streets.
From the Latin passus, paso means "chapter" or
part of a movement—a staging. The pasos of Seville’s Holy Week seem to
derive from the medieval religious play, theatrically connected to the carts and mobile
stages on which mystery plays at Corpus Cristi were performed. Like the dramatic effigies,
their floats and the manner in which they are carried through the streets, the names of
the brotherhoods are long and descriptive, like the names of the religious mysteries. For
instance, a brotherhood, known simply as La Carreteria (the Cartwright’s) full
name is: Holy Christ of Salvation, Holy Mary of Light in the Mystery of Her Three
Hardships and Our Lady of Great Sorrow in Her Solitude.
Most of Seville’s brotherhoods first appeared in the 16th
and 17th centuries, their function being pious and charitable, looking after
the effigies and doing penitence, running hospitals and homes for the elderly. Brothers
came from all parts of society. In recent times, brotherhoods that were once affluent and
important have been overtaken by others of less social standing. This is because the
population of the old city centre has fallen while that of the outlying districts has
risen sharply, and with it the number of brothers. In the middle of the week, the
brotherhood El Dulce Nombre (The Sweet Name), dating from 1582 but with only 500
members, will start its procession at its Parroquia (Parish) de San Lorenzo,
which happens to be directly beside the Basilica de Gran Poder. Before embarking on
a six-hour round-trip shuffle through the district of La Macarena to the edge of Santa
Cruz where the Cathedral sprawls, the procession—the nazarenos, the band, the costaleros
and hence the paso—will turn slowly towards the doors of Gran Poder to
acknowledge the Basilica’s permission of letting the Parish proceed first. The
brotherhood El Gran Poder, with 2100 members and its cult-worshipped Jesus de
Gran Poder will not have its procession until 1 o’clock in the morning, Good
Friday.
Ultimately, Las Hermandades are Seville’s Catholic
Church’s richest source of popular spirituality. Today there are almost sixty
brotherhoods, sustaining a full-time religious and social activity culminating with the pasos,
where costume-makers, goldsmithery, embroidery, flower arrangement, photography,
publishing and many other contributions are made by the members and their families. The
other participants—parishioners, onlookers, neighbours, non-believers,
spectators—all take part in the drama that is so central to the Sevillano’s
identity. All of this celebration germinates with the hermandades, the seed of
Sevillano life.
